reminders
by Theneversky
Summary: I can't- I won't- believe it. Sherlock wasn't a fake genius, he was honest to God real and I know it. I sit and stare blankly into the white lab wall. This was where we first met. I though him a complete mad hatter, only to be proved right, but he had been good and honest and- ooooh suspence. :
1. Chapter 1 John

Gone. Dead. Forever.

I can't- I _won't_- believe it. Sherlock wasn't a fake genius, he was honest to God _real_ and I know it. I sit and stare blankly into the white lab wall. This was where we first met. I though him a complete mad hatter, only to be proved right, but he had been good and honest and-

_Stop John! _

I tear my thoughts back to the present. Thinking of him now meant pain and that was something I had just been able to supress. Just. Mrs Hudson is speaking to me but I can't hear her. All I can see is Sherlock sitting at his microscope. All I can hear is him saying "Afghanistan or Iraq?" Mrs Hudson steps into my direct line of sight so I am forced to pay attention to her.

"I really don't think coming back here was the best idea John" Her concern is heart-warming and of course, she's right. I hang my head in defeat. Coming back here had been a mistake. I'm not ready yet. I will never be fully ready but I thought I could come to terms with the…situation quicker if I faced my past with him sooner. But I was wrong. I suck in a deep breath and look Mrs Hudson straight in the eyes. She has tears in her concerned eyes and gives me a small nod. She understands and so, we depart from the lab but not before I can hear his smooth voice echo in my mind

"_My name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker St" _A shudder goes through me as the words ring so clear in my head. I will never be able to go back to 221B Baker. There are too many memories of the times I spent with him. Too many reminders to haunt me day in, day out.

"Mrs Hudson, what will we do with 221B?" We've made it to the car and Mrs Hudson is pulling out her keys. She sighs and responds with

"Sell it I guess, we can't just leave it there to gather dust and become old and creaky. John, it's for the best and I don't expect you to go back there" I nod and slide into the car. Selling it _would_ be for the best. However, while I can't go back there, all the while I can't seem to let it go either. That was Sherlock's home. A home he adorned with his own personal touches like the body parts in the fridge, the sound of the violin drifting through the small, skull positioned carefully on the mantle, the bullet holes through the wall and best of all the yellow smiley face spray painted on the wallpaper. I smile at the memory but it soon drops when I realize that I will never have those things again, not ever in the same way.

Mrs Hudson drops me off at my old flat, the one I had before I met Sherlock, and then I am alone again. It is like a reoccurring scenario for me. Alone. All the time alone. Even when I am standing in a crowd of people or sitting in a packed cinema seeing the latest trashy movie release just for something to do, I am alone. There is no one to comfort me. No one but Lestrade and he moved away. He seemed almost as distraught as I was when everything came crashing down. _Almost._ I lie down and close my eyes. Sleeping should be the worst part, being alone with only my thoughts should bring sleepless nights and slow tired days. But it's as if the world wants me to be wide awake and make sure that I see everything that could even remotely remind me of him. No, being awake is the worst part. Being reminded by everything of my memories of our time spent together. The pull of sleep finally drags me under to a peaceful sleep of inky black.


	2. Chapter 2 Sherlock: the plan

**SHERLOCK POV**

I saw him again today. He was with Mrs Hudson in my old lab near the mortuary. Every time I see him it gets harder. He looks worse and worse each day. It's as if the life and spirit has been sucked from him, not that John was the spirited type before. But still. His eyes sunken and he visibly looked thinner. Every time I see him my control almost crumbles. _Almost. _If I were to reveal my position to John now… things would not work out well. But never the less, the urge to run up to him and make his pain go away still tugs at my core. But no, I needed him to truly believe I was dead. If he believed it then anyone who saw him wouldn't doubt me being gone. Hell, _I _even think I'm dead when I look at his face. He's so helpless and, well, down.

I sit in an old abandon apartment on the outskirts of London where everything is run down. I am lying under a picnic blanket I stole from the park. Well, more like _found _in the park. It wasn't my fault I was in desperate need of bedding and a couple _happened _to leave their picnic rug un attended for a while. They could rest easy; it was for a good cause.

Sighing, I roll over and pick up my phone. The bright light is harsh against the dark room but I grow use to it as I re-read for the hundredth time my old text messages to John and his replies. I smile at the gradual change of attitude toward me through text messages. When he first met me, his texts clearly mirrored his distaste for my arrogance but as time went by and we became closer, his attitude changed and I could tell that my arrogance and pride did nothing more than amused him. I can almost see his eyes roll and his un-interested face that I always knew was listening even when it appeared otherwise in the darkness of the apartment. I am just putting away my phone when it buzzes. Irene. She's supposed to be dead to, she can help me. After all, she is in my debt. I open up the message and it reads

_Thought you may need some help. _

Then an address and a warning about coming disguised.

_Love Irene_

My heart rate has accelerated so I concentrate on trying to relax. But I can't. Irene may be able to help me acquire enough evidence to clear my name against some, if not _all, _charges laid against me (She is a resourceful woman). I fell already that I am one step closer to John already. A sinking feeling has soon welled up inside me though. _What _evidence? There is nothing that is in my favour. The fake name and persona Moriarty made up as well as planting that seed of doubt in everyone's mind about me being a fraud will make it virtually impossible to dig up something that supports my case. And then an idea occurs to me. Oh yes. There are a number of holes and flaws with is but it is the only even remote idea on where to start. A start, that's what it is. And it would also require possibly my worst nightmare. I would have to spend much more time away from John than I had originally thought. He was not going to like it and nor was but I would have to do it or we'd both die.

...

Irene's now blonde hair shines in the sun light of the rare London sun. I walk with as brisk a pace as I can manage without my wig and beard falling off. I look completely and utterly ridiculous. But it doesn't matter, I'm supposed to be dead anyway. I wear a big billowy knitted poncho made of brightly coloured wool and brown slacks. No shoes. THE woman's gaze barely brushes over me as she scans the courtyard full of people. She doesn't know it's me. Perfect. I halt a short distance away from her and sit on a park bench that is nicely concealed by immaculately trimmed hedges and the fountain on which Irene is sitting a short distance away. The bench is backed up straight onto another that faces the large green garden spotted with flower beds and a few shady trees. There are about fifteen other people enjoying the grace of fine weather this morning. None looking especially suspicious. Irene soon realizes that the crazy looking hippie on the park bench is me and makes her way over. She's wearing dark grey slacks with a red frilly blouse and thick red lipstick to compliment. She looks like she's about to head off to work after she chats with the crazy hippie. Her blonde hair is curled and purposely placed to her right side. The bench is backed up straight onto another that faces the large green garden spotted with flower beds and a few shady trees. She takes her seat so her back is to me and begins

"I head you were in a spot of trouble and I was getting quite 'shersick'" I can feel her smile from where I sit and I can't help one of my own.

"Yes, you'd be correct. However, I think I have an idea."

"Oh? And what would it be?" I take in a deep breath of crisp morning air that tingles my nose and fills my lungs with clean air. God I miss cigarettes. And so I begin

"I have to get arrested, not publically and it can't be in the news. In the best interests of _everyone _that until the judge sentences me as guilty, I am to remain 'dead'. They need evidence to convict me. Moriarty was crafty in creating the identity of Richard Brook to make it look like I was the master criminal. But he wasn't _that _thorough." I pause. How to go on? Thoughts are racing through my mind; pieces were clicking while others were falling apart. I push on though, hoping whatever I said made sense to Irene. "He only made enough _paper_ copies and photo graphs to show that journalist, one web site, and a few staged TV shows. Stuff that can easily be destroyed. That's where you come in. I need you to destroy that folder full of his fake identity in Kitty Riley's flat and get rid of the videos and website from the internet. They are all on one webpage called .

"Alright, I can do that. But Sherlock" Irene says as I get up. She too gets up and now we're facing eachother. "What are _you _going to do? I'm only helping and what's this about you getting arrested?" With my swirling thoughts whizzing inside my head, my starting place seems like a million years away.

"If I am arrested and in their custody, I can't interfere with anything. Once you destroy the evidence I have said, you will find more and I know you will. And if you don't? don't stop until you _do" _I'm leaning forward now across the park bench with a matter of urgency in my voice "If more evidence is not found and destroyed, the police will have a lot more things to use against me. You can't let that happen. Not just for me but for John, he thinks I am dead and being locked away for life for a dozen crimes I didn't commit will send him mad" My chest is heaving with pants as I throw my words at Irene. She _needs _to understand how important this is, and judging by the look on her face, I think she does. I straighten back up and brush off my Poncho. "One more thing, I will get them to give me the hardest cases they can and I will solve them on my own. Case after case I will do for them, as many as they want to prove that the cases I solved were not staged but indeed _actually solved _by me"

Irene nods at this but then says "Will that be enough? Will they think that proves you didn't stage the other crimes, Moriarty's dead and he's the one who set up most of them?"

"He may be dead but we can still prove the crimes were his doing. Every genius needs somewhere to store their mind, their ideas and their plots. I'll bet my life on it that Moriarty had a journal of some degree to concoct his plans."

A thought then occurs to me. "Irene. Where have _you _been?"

"Here and there, around and about. I haven't done any more deeds with the devil if that's what you asking.

"No, I just wanted to make sure you hadn't spent the life I gave you in a brothel"

"I'm pretty sure this was the life my mother and father _gave _me"

"You know what I mean" We exchange a smile and part ways. I had missed Irene. But not as much and as painfully as I miss john. I miss his blogging and ridiculous names for our cases, his annoyance at my shooting the walls and body parts in the fridge. But most of all, I miss his smiles, as rare as they may have been, they were brilliant and would almost bring a smile to my own lips. John is my best friend, and I am _not _going to let him down.


	3. Chapter 3 John: a pirate

**JOHN'S POV**

The for sale notice was out. Mrs Hudson had posted it on the Baker St Apartments website and also another notice on a real-estate site. Mr Hudson and I sit at the dining room table in my small flat. She says "John, I need to tell you something"

"Yes?"

"You need to gather all you things from the apartment, clean the kitchen and, well…move out I guess" She was asking me to go back there. I can't. There are too many reminders of him, after all, it is his come- _was- _his home. I hate having to think and talk about Sherlock in a past tense. He was supposed to be here for so much longer. He shouldn't be _dead. _Mrs Hudson looks at me expectantly. I rub my hand over my eyes, although it is more for something to do _other_ than look at Mrs Hudson and less because of fatigue.

"Life at the moment and seeing places that I went with him is bad enough but having to face the place where we _lived _and everything there that he owned and used. Mrs Hudson, I don't think I'll ever be able to face that"

I can see that Mrs Hudson understands, but I can also see that she is adamant that I face the reminders of him.

"Maybe if you confront yourself with the closest things to him, life its self will become easier and instead of the places you went together haunting you, they only remind you of great times you had together" She has a point. I long for the times when I will only be reminded and not haunted but would doing this really speed that up? I hoped not because I had made up my mind: I wasn't going to. Instead, I'd hire people to come in and clean it and sell the furniture and any other possessions they find. Mrs Hudson can get my clothes and I won't have to go through the pain of feeling like I lost him a second time.

Mrs Hudson leaves at around six. I have nothing to do. Suddenly, a memory resurfaces. A small snippet of conversation between me and Mycroft

"_My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart? -Mycroft. I don't know. - John. Nor do I, but initially, he wanted to be a pirate"_

A Pirate. Initially, when Sherlock was young and innocent and free, he wanted to be a pirate. I clamber out of my seat and grab the newspaper form Sunday and my laptop. I open up a Google search and type in 'how to make a pirate hat'. And so, from that moment, pirate hats made from news paper, cardboard, small scraps of paper or fabric became my symbol of peace for Sherlock. Because before everything became complicated, he wanted to be a pirate. Sailing the world without a care in the world. They became my symbol of happiness for Sherlock. He would have had all the happiness in the world if he had of become a pirate. If he had been a pirate, he would never have jumped off that building. And even though I know the thought it insane and stupid, the pirate hat became my symbol because Sherlock would still be here with me if he had been a pirate. We could have , met in some other bizarre situation and we'd be happy. I have to force myself into the cold stream of water coming from my shower head. Because the stupidly insane hope and wish that he had been a pirate was so warm and comforting that it threatened to drag me away into a false land of hope and dreams. The cold water shocks me back into reality. Sherlock could never have become a pirate. He would never have chosen a different path and the only things that keeps me standing on two feet with dry eyes is the memory of his face when he was working on a case. The extreme concentration and delight in his eyes when he was working furiously on something. So I know he was happy, he may not have lived long, but the life he did live was a happy one doing what he loved.

That night, I fall asleep on my couch in a small ball, clutching the folded pirate hat tightly against my chest.

…

_Sherlock Holmes._

That's all the grave stone reads when I visit it. I always hope in some far away corner of my mind that the name has changed. But no, without fail, every time I visit (which has become quite regular) the gold lettering still sends stabs of pain through my heart. I visit him so he knows I still care. So he's not alone. It's also the only time I feel like I'm not alone.

I usually ramble on about the weather or about what's been happening now he's gone. I update him on the important things like the transit of Venus because Sherlock _loved_ astrology. I always make sure I'm alone though today I don't. I spot a man with long blonde hair and a bushy beard reading the newspaper and as soon as I reach his grave I turn around and ask the man for a sheet of his paper that he has already read. He looks at me but I can't see his expression or even half his face because he has huge black sun glasses that don't allow me to see any of his eyes. He hands me a page and I scramble back over to the grave where I fall to my knees and begin to fold. Soon, I have made a pirate hat which I fit onto the top of the grave stone. I am breathing heavily and there's a lump in my throat when I say

"There. Now you can be free Sherlock. Now…you can be free" My voice breaks on the last word and the tears fall. I have only cried twice since Sherlock died. The first time at his funeral and now. Now I can't seem to hold it in any longer, and I don't try. I weep freely. I weep for a great man who didn't deserve to die. I weep for my best friend, and finally, for the consulting detective whom I loved and had lost. I may have loved him in a romantic way, I may not. But I do know that I loved him-_love-_ him and that will never change. I don't know how long it's been since I arrived but the sky is beginning to turn dark when I leave. In that cemetery I let myself remember everything. Every moment, every feeling and every smile Sherlock had given me. I had let it all out and now, walking to the road, I felt lighter. As if a huge burden had been lifted off my shoulders. Already as a taxi pulls up and I slid in a feel better about sitting with the chair next to be empty instead of it being occupied by Sherlock. I'm not ready to face 221B yet, but a small new feeling has sprouted inside of me. The feeling of hope that one day I will return to 221B only to find memories of better times and not pain and misery.


	4. Chapter 4 Sherlock: Mind palace

**SHERLOCK POV**

I gave John some of my newspaper today. I had walked home in a daze at being so close to him. He had _talked _to me. The small beaten apartment I sit in now is drowned out by the chaos in my head. I couldn't watch after he had finished folding the paper hat and said _"__There. Now you can be free Sherlock. Now…you can be free"_

I had gotten out of the cemetery as fast as I could and made my way back here. My control had once again been on the verge of destruction when I'd seen the first tear roll down John's cheek. I had never seen him cry before and the thought of it being because of me I couldn't bear. John always talks to my grave when he thinks there is no one listening. I picked this up early and kept going back when he made his regular visits. Every second Wednesday. I listened to what he had to say and kept in the loop. Apparently Lestrade had gone on a holiday to return sometime next week. When he got back, I would go to the police and the plan would begin. With tears now making a serious threat to fall down my cheeks, I push all thoughts of John and the pirate hat and his words that will forever be imprinted in my mind away and focused on what other evidence Moriarty could have left. Then I remember.

_My phone!_

I had used it to record my conversation on the rooftop with Moriarty before my staged death and Molly had retrieved it and returned it to me. I had asked her to because if the police found it then, it would have been the wrong time and the recording would have been a waste. I reach into my pocket and feel the rough scrapes along the sides and the back of the phone. I need to make sure I keep it safe so Irene can get to it once all the other evidence against me has been destroyed. But what else? I know Moriarty has a journal somewhere with everything in it. _I know it!_

Think Sherlock Think. Now was the perfect time to pay my mind palace a visit.

Moriarty has never displayed any form of book or notepad around me or anyone so it has to be either hidden or electronic. Moriarty doesn't live in one place. He is constantly moving from hotel to hotel, different names each time. So maybe a storage locker?

But _where? _He's been all over the world doing deed. But he always comes back to London, England. It's the closest thing he has to a 'home base' or 'base of operations'. So it has to be here somewhere. Moriarty also has a very large ego so he'd be cocky about it and hide it in plain sight and yet impossibly concealed. He would have made it so it was possible to be found by anyone but only a few could are actually clever enough to actually figure it out. Irene could possibly be able to do it, but it would take too long. It would need to be me. I could always get Mycroft and Irene to team up, because I can't be snooping around for a journal in a prison cell. Could I do it before? It was Wednesday night and (according to John) Lestrade was getting back next Thursday which leaves me with a week. A week to find a journal that has been so well concealed for (what I'm guessing is) about 20 years. Moriarty has been the consulting criminal of the _world _for almost that long and it wouldn't have taken him long to figure out that with that many clients and jobs that he needed so place to record everything. We could also be looking for an electronic device. I shook my head. But where to start _looking_. Moriarty would have put it in a tourist attraction. Everyone sees them at least once and so hence the 'everybody has a chance to find it'.

It could have been places in someone else's possession, someone who he was close to or had a huge amount of trust in who _works_ at a main attraction. They would keep it safe. He would have put it in a storage locker where people can store their bags and possessions when the want to look around without having the hassle of carrying their things. Except it won't open, and it won't be available to hire because Moriarty's secrets and crimes are stashed away there. There will be exceptional security because there is no way Moriarty would leave something that valuable to be guarded by one man. The security would have to have a reason to be there so the attraction would need to be exceptionally valuable to let Moriarty position lots of security there and what tourist attraction is so valuable that you need high levels of security?

The crown jewels. And where to you find the crown jewels?

The tower of London.

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	5. Chapter 5 John: the dream

**JOHN POV**

"Oooh John! We have a happy newlywed couple that are interested in 221B. They say though that there will need to be a clean-up because they will not be buying a dusty cluttered apartment"

Mrs Hudson is chatting excitedly as fold my fifth pirate hat for that day out of the old paper I found in my flat. I have seven in total. The one I made on Tuesday night and the one I put on Sherlock's grave plus these five makes seven. Although ones I still have, six, because the one on Sherlock's grave has gone now. I smile at the memory of me placing the pirate hat on Sherlock's gravestone. It had a picture of a little girl smiling and holding three yellow balloons on the very front. You could see her perfectly and it made me wonder what Sherlock would have been like as a father. A terrible one I am sure, but at least I could rely on him to be protective. Whom he would have the child with remains a mystery to me.

Once the pirate hat is done I finally tune back into what Mrs Hudson is saying.

"-ming back in about two weeks to have another look at the apartment and decide if they will take it so you have that long to clean up. John, have you been listening to me?"

"hhm? Oh, yes. Urm, two weeks to clean up and move out. Got it" Mrs Hudson crosses the room and sits opposite me at the dining room table. Her face is kind and soft when she says

"John, it's not too late you know? You can still keep 221B and I can tell the couple you've reconsidered"

"Why would I?"

"Because…do you really think this is what Sherlock would have wanted?" No. It's not. But it's what I have to do because I can't face 221B. That is something that I will not do, not yet and possibly not ever. But now that Mrs Hudson has said it, it hits home. Sherlock's home is what I am selling. I am handing it over to someone who didn't even know him without even going to say goodbye to all the memories we had there. And if I did…at what cost? The pain and misery would cloud my everyday life and even just the thought of returning to a 221B without Sherlock's violin music wafting through already brings a deep ache to my chest. I tell Mrs Hudson I will think over it and tell her in two days.

Two days.

My future could hang on the decision that I make in those two days. Before Mrs Hudson leaves, she tells me we are going to meet the interested couple tomorrow morning at nine. And I'd _better _not be late.

I settle into the pathetic excuse of a bed I have and drift off the sleep, only tonight, I do dream or Sherlock and it's not a pleasant dream either.

_He is standing in the middle of 221B. The room is a mess. The furniture is smashed and the windows nothing more than holes in the walls with the glass littering the floor. Skull is in a million pieces on the floor. Bullet holes, gashes from huge blades and blood. There is blood everywhere. But none of it seems to matter because he is standing there. Staring, straight at me. His perfect blue eyes shine and pierce the darkness that shrouds the dream. His long black coat wraps around his tall thin frame and his hair is sticking up at odd but styled angles. He looks normal, as if nothing has happened. That the room we are standing in isn't blow to pieces and everything is ruined. He opens his mouth and the dream shifts and we are standing on the rooftop Sherlock jumped off. He begins to walk backwards toward the edge. No! What is he doing! I try to move but my feet won't budge. It's as if my feet have been cemented into the ceiling. I don't stop trying though. I push and fight. Another step. I scream his name but nothing comes out. My throat is dry and has closed up. I can breathe but I can't speak. Another step. Tears are streaming down my cheeks. I reach out my hand toward him trying to grasp the fabric of his coat. Another step. Panic thunders through me, he's right there, I can save him! and then he's gone._

"_Sherlock!" The scream rips through my throat and a wake with a start._

His name still echoes through the apartment even after I wake. I must have screamed it out loud. There is a creamy yellow light flittering through the closed curtains. It's morning. I check my watch that's still clasped around my wrist. It reads 7:30am. I am supposed to be meeting Mrs Hudson to see the interested couple about 221B today at 10:00am at the espresso room on Great Ormond Street. I am unsure of what I will think of them but I do know that it'll be important that I don't come across like some insane grieving man who can barely string two sentences together. Get up and shake my head a few times. He had seemed so real. I hold on to the image of his face. His sparkling blue eyes and his black curly hair. My heart rate was way up so instead of thinking about anything else, I focused on getting my heart rate to an appropriate pace.

The room. 221B in my dream was blown to bits and destroyed but Sherlock was there in the middle of it. Like he had caused it. It was my world. My world has been shattered and destroyed ever since that day that Sherlock stepped off that building. But I didn't blame him. Did i? No, I didn't.

But what had the rooftop meant. When I couldn't move but if I could have I could have saved him. When I'd run out of the lab, when I had received the call about Mrs Hudson. I'd left him and he'd died. The phone call was a trick by him to get me away so he could jump.

Damn it! Why hadn't I been more attentive? He was suffering silently and I was sitting idle on the side lines. Which brings me back to the question of why.

Why. Why. Why?

Sherock wasn't a fake genius so why did he jump? Why didn't he tell me? was I really that blind? Oh God, I was. I couldn't even see when my best friend was in probably one of his darkest hours.

But Why? Why was he so depressed that could have made him jump because for not one second do I believe that he was a fake. I know him. I know him.

At least I thought I did.  
At least I think I do.

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